For me, Our Lady of Guadalupe.
As I consider her, various thoughts come to me:
This was the Lady I grew up with, and so is close to my heart since a child.
The tilma is astonishingly beautiful, even all these centuries later, and it was done by God; it’s not someone’s conception of the apparition.
It reminds me of Apocalypse 12:1.
The belt that she wears shows her divine maternity and when I look at the image, I think of Our Lord in her womb, as He is in the tabernacle. He is present indeed!
I am always affected by how she identified herself to St. Juan Diego:
**Yo soy la siempre Virgen María, Madre del verdadero Dios por quien se vive. **
I am the Ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of the true God through whom there is life.
Y otra vez dile que yo en persona, la siempre Virgen Santa María, Madre de Dios, te envía.
And again tell him that I personally, the Ever-Virgin Holy Mary, Mother of God, sends you.
Source:
ewtn.com/spanish/Maria/guadalupe.htm (my translation)
She is a young girl, and yet so powerful, our beloved Mother of God!
When she arranged the roses just so, to be exactly as she wanted them, such a loving final touch!
My mother told me that when she was a little girl, she was told Our Lady’s hands, now folded in prayer, will open at the end of the world. Sometimes I look at this image, at those hands, and meditate on that great event.
take care,
amsjj
+++
Jesus, God and man,
imprisoned by love in Thy most holy Sacrament,
have mercy upon us.
– Blessed John Henry Newman, December 22, 1851
Tú y yo sabemos por la fe que oculto en las especies sacramentales está Cristo,
ese Cristo con su Cuerpo, con su Sangre, con su Alma, y con su Divinidad,
prisonero de amor.
– San Josemaria Escriva, 1 junio 1974
:shrug: